exploring blog archives: prastund.blogg.se, august-december 2009

I’ve been on a fashion blog kick as of late, so I wanted to switch things up this week.  Pratstund.blogg.se was the blog of Elin, a Swedish teenager who documented all facets of her day-to-day, from hang outs with friends to daily breakfasts to OOTDs.  But the main thing that drew me to her blog was the writing she shared about her life.  While Google translate hardly does her posts justice, it honestly made me a little emotional to see how aspects of the teenage experience are shared across cultures and time periods.  In one post, she writes “I am restless and tired of everything following the same pattern. Tomorrow is already the first day of October. I don't really understand how everything can go so fast. It doesn't feel like I'm keeping up at all,” which sounds like something that was taken out of my high school journal. In another, she says “school has started and we have to find an internship in less than two weeks. I have no idea what I want to do or where. I drown the sadness and panic about this in coffee.”  I mean, I’m well into my 20s and still feel the same way.  It’s hard to truly capture all the angst, anger, and excitement of one’s teen years, but I think Elin does it justice through her blog: 

flickr finds: yOyO in Wickedland (aka yoyosuicide) 2008-2010

YoyoSuicide’s flickr is a masterclass in 2000’s alt fashion.  As a blogger/jewelry designer/SuicideGirl, Yoyo routinely showed off pictures of her outfits, which incorporated elements of scene, kawaii, and emo style, all topped off with hair so voluminous and shaggy it’d make any myspace-obsessed teen jealous. While people love to cringe at millennial style because they think that makes them interesting or whatever, real heads know that Yoyo’s style is elite.  The vibrant hair extensions, the overloading of accessories, the neon and striped t-shirts—it’s so bright and fun while also being subversive, and I’m glad it’s making a comeback:  

The Royals Vibe Shift and 2013 Tumblr Aesthetics

I bookmarked believe-and-just-smile.tumblr.com a while back but was waiting for the right time to share it…which happens to be now.  

During the summer of 2013, there was a distinct aesthetic vibe shift that took place.  The bright, saturated images that dominated social media petered out and were replaced by ones that were minimal in tone.  I like to call this change the “Royals Vibe Shift” after the song Royals by Lorde, since it best represents this shift on the most mainstream level.  As Lorde overhauled the pop music landscape overnight with her low-key suburban anthems, the aesthetic denizens of tumblr also moved away from high-def and maximalist imagery of quality blogs to a more muted style dubbed as the “personal/vertical” blog.  

screenshots from the archive of wastery.tumblr.com that clearly illustrate the difference between the quality and vertical/personal aesthetic, taken August 2013 and December 2013

Marina, better known as cuntgradulation on tumblr, was one of the most high-profile quality bloggers to make the switch during August 2013, and many other quality bloggers (myself included), soon followed suit. Within a year, the quality blog was basically dead, and other lofi aesthetics—namely vintage, personal/vertical, and pale blogs—reigned supreme.

And yes there was ~drama~ over the switch.  one day I will talk about how unhinged quality blogs were because they were basically cults. 

I still remember the day I stopped reblogging quality and made the switch to vertical/personal.  I was drawn to its simple imagery, which felt refreshing compared the super saturated materialistic quality photos I had previously consume.  Looking back, however, I can see this shift was basically just the zeitgeist doing its thing and bringing minimalism to the forefront of our culture after a decade of ‘80s-inspired maximalism. 

Anyways, believe-and-just-smile is emblematic of this era of internet aesthetics.  You’ll notice lots of minimal compositions, neutral tones, and natural backdrops.  Victoria’s Secret Pink hoodies were swapped out for Huf knee socks, galaxy painted sneakers were replaced with worn-in Vans, zebra print duvets switched out for plain white sheets—the vibe was less suburban popular kid and more laid-back California skater.  Perfect for the end of summer, in my opinion at least: